


Sometimes only Flames can Quench the Fire

by Osmosian



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Burning, Fire, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Murder, Pyromania, Serial Killers, killer marius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:19:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osmosian/pseuds/Osmosian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Marius doesn’t want to hurt those poor girls . Actually, he is good to those girls who have no families, no relatives. He becomes their friends and asks for nothing else than to see the fear and the pain in their beautiful eyes when the fire caresses every inches of their bodies."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes only Flames can Quench the Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tveitjolraas](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tveitjolraas).
  * Inspired by [Les Mis Serial Killers](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/22590) by tveitjolraas. 



> All thanks completely go to tveitjolraas.tumblr.com.  
> I simply interpreted their idea in this way.

Her face, more specifically her cheeks, sat before him; them a slanted plain of perfection. It could not possibly be helped if his hand should lift, to caress the soft flesh, and leave ash trails amongst the black. She was still warm. Warm either from the remainder of life, or else the very burn of his heartbeat.

Marius wondered, brushing away the frazzled hair from her blackened face, how old she had actually been. She was a young thing, no doubt. Still, he could see it in her eyes that she had known hunger. But it was a hunger unlike his own, the one that lived inside of him. He liked to imagine that it was encased in flame, but not even he believed that it was possible for a fire to go unharmed within his soul. Flames needed to feed, just as humans did. Just as he and the girl did…- had.

Although her hunger was at an end, Marius was starting to believe that his never would.

Yes, he had seen hunger in her young eyes, but he could see that she had never seen real fear before. She had never considered her own mortality. Virgins were always the sweetest. The way they cowered, begged, expected a saviour.

Marius had told her that he loved her before he set the flame. And it was true. She had fed him for a night, a week, a month perhaps. He could never be sure when he would become hungry again. All it would take was a smile, a glint of blonde hair, and hunger. Always hunger:  throbbing, aching, released only in the heat and burning embers and bodies.

When he had first realised his hunger, he had been unsure, uncertain of the best way to sate it. His first throat had been slit, the blood was the first blood that had covered his hands. It was warm, but did nothing. He wanted more heat, ached for it.

His second he had kept alive for longer. He had peeled her flesh from her skin, more blood dripping from her, warming him. But she had sobbed, and begged and screamed, and he had been interrupted by sirens outside. Of course, he managed to escape after lodging the knife in her jugular. A convulsing body was all the police found when entering the small house, which was more a hole in the ground than a shelter, or a liveable environment. No doubt the rats in the walls tongued the remainder of her blood. They shared it amongst their fellows and fought over the larger chunks of flesh. Although Marius was happy to have fed a family of rats, he still felt the burn inside of him. His stomach still gurgled to be filled with something other than food.

The realisation –epiphany- was a month later. It seemed as if it were from God, or else some other spirit who was interested in his wellbeing. Luck, or divine intervention, had forced Marius to leave University earlier than usual from sickness, although that was soon forgotten, as if it had not even existed. His route to home passed by a burning building. He happened to be in time to see the fire-fighters tugging a burning corpse from the building. Something inside of him stirred, his sickness forgotten, yet also rejuvenated. He watched as they attempted to place the burning man onto a stretcher, their hands tugging away the clinging skin. Where his hair had been sat only soot; a memory of yellow or red or brown. Marius had never seen something so beautiful. No doubt the fire was not even extinguished before Marius was home, and in bed, and hyperventilating. Pulling his matchbox from his pocket, he lit one. The flame smiled at him, as if it were a friend, before he extinguished it on his wrist, where the burn smiled up at him still.

Linseed oil could be bought in large qualities without it looking suspicious, unlike petrol when nobody had seen him with a car. Should he be caught with Linseed oil he could simply pretend that he worked in a restaurant and needed it. That was the best thing about living in a town where nobody knew you; your life could be created from nothing. There are also two main reasons why Linseed oil was perfect: The smell. Anybody could be able to tell the smell of petroleum and a burning body, but perhaps they are not aware of the smell of Linseed oil, which is a stronger smell. And the flash point. Marius, who remembered his high school classes of chemistry, remembered that with a higher flashpoint, the material would burn slower. This would allow Marius to watch the flames from a safe distance. His meals would be longer, his hunger all the more satisfied.

Eponine was his first real meal.

Eponine, and her shrived body allowed him to live all the more longer. She had allowed him sate that ever-flame inside of him. Even for a moment- since he hungered again only a week later- he felt peaceful watching the fire smile at her, as it had him a while ago. And she was happy to do this for him, happy to help him.

Not that he had ever asked her.

 


End file.
